1. Field of The Invention
This invention relates generally to surgical operating room furniture, and, more specifically, to a microscope accessory equipment container designed to store, protect, and make readily available a substantial number of different types of surgical microscope accessories and other equipment for supporting microsurgery.
2. Description of The Prior Art
Since the surgical microscope was introduced, circa 1960, numerous accessories have been developed, thus allowing a single microscope to be used by various surgical specialties such as ophthalmology, neurosurgery, hand surgery and otolaryngology. Surgical microscopes attached to a floor stand are intended to offer portability, and are designed to be utilized by various surgical specialties. They are easily and frequently moved from one hospital operating room to another. Each surgical specialty usually requires a different configuration of the surgical microscope. Within each specialty there also exist individual surgeons' preferences for accessory equipment which dictate yet additional configurations of the microscope. Heretofore, these accessories have been stored in a rather haphazard fashion, often in a location distant from the microscope and without regard to the safe keeping of expensive precision accessories which often contain critical optical components. It is not unusual for the owners of surgical microscopes to incur significant replacement and/or service costs due to improper storage or handling of accessories and associated equipment. A major consideration of this invention is to provide a container for the safe, clean storage of microscope accessories. Additionally, a substantial amount of time is required to reconfigure the microscope each time it is used for a different surgical procedure when accessory equipment is stored in a remote location. This invention reduces the time required to reconfigure a microscope.
One object of the invention is to provide immediate accessibility to accessories with the attachment of the storage container directly to the microscope stand.
An important aspect to consider regarding the invention is the limited availability of space within the operating room. Due to various requirements in patient, surgeon, and equipment positioning around the microscope, it is critical that any attachments to the microscope not obstruct access to the patient or other operating room equipment. Thus, another object of the invention is to provide a mechanism for repositioning the microscope accessory equipment container to accommodate space restrictions. The repositioning mechanism varies slightly depending upon the particular design of the microscope support stand. Approximately seven different configurations of microscope floor stands exist today. A unique aspect of the invention is that it is able to attach to each of the different microscope designs and, with the appropriate mounting mechanism still fulfill its objectives.